“Yes; it is rest in itself. I have never stayed in the country before.”
“Is it possible!” he exclaimed.
He had often languidly discussed the comparative advantages of Murren and Zermatt with girls who took a yearly tour abroad as naturally as their dinner, but to talk to one who had spent her whole life in towns, who could enjoy a country evening so absolutely and unaffectedly, was a strange and delightful novelty.
“You are one of those who can really enjoy,” he said. “You are not blasee you are one of the happy mortals who keep the faculty of enjoyment as strongly all through life as in childhood.”
“Yes, I think I can enjoy,” said Erica. “But I suppose we pay for our extra faculty of enjoyment.
“You mean by being more sensitive to pain?”
“Yes, though that sounds rather like Dickens's Mrs. Gummidge, when she thought she felt smoky chimneys more than other people.”
He laughed.
“How I wish you could turn over your work to me, and go to Switzerland tomorrow in my place! Only I should wish to be there, too, for the sake of seeing you enjoy it.”
“Do you go tomorrow?”